Seperate fires gut homes

The Louisville Fire Department recently responded to a residential fire in the Greensboro community in Louisville on July 10 after an emergency call reporting of white smoke coming from the residential area.

The department received a call to respond to a house fire located at 805 Metts Street around 4:55 p.m. The firefighters quickly responded to the alert, and arrived on the scene within a 3-4 minute time range.

The department took a total of 13 firefighters to the scene as they drove LFD Engines 1 and 2, as well as Brush 1 and Fire 1 trucks. The team was thoroughly prepared for any occurrences that could possibly arise on the scene.

LFD Fire Chief Terry Johnson explained the team’s plan when they first reached the scene. “We have what’s called an incident command process,” Johnson said. “What I do is walk around the structure to see what is exactly going on. Then we start to plan our tactics.”

The firefighters then took a course of action to go in and do an “interior attack”, in which firefighters use to contain the fire in a certain area. “There was a lot of smoke and heat build-up in the attic,” Johnson said. “So we made a decision not to only vent the structure horizontally, but also vertically.”

With the heat and smoke in the attic, the team opened a hole in the roof to ventilate it, as well as ripping open some walls to ventilate the ground floor.

The team’s tactics paid off as they were able to contain the fire in under an hour. Minimal damage on the exterior made for a much easier clean up for the firefighters. “That tactic we used helped contain the fire to where it was. We saved the structure, and it can be rebuilt.”

Looking at the structure after the fire, it has a sufficient amount of exterior damage, but from seeing the interior, it could have been worse. “The home did have smoke alarms, but no one was home at the time of the fire,” Johnson said.

At this time the fire is still under investigation by local authorities. No injuries occurred on the scene as well. Thanks to the quick response and tactics of the fire department, the blaze was contained in an efficient manner. “The crew did a tremendous job,” Johnson said. “They saved this structure. All-in- all, it was a wonderful operation by the firefighters.”

The LFD helped bring a truck to another fire which county volunteers contained on July 13. Area fire firefighters responded to a house fire at 4279 HighPoint-Weir Road. The house suffered significant damage from the fire.

MS PRESS

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